Hello everybody, Shaun Meyers (Kyo Akiara) here once again to bring you my review of Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage on PC. Darkness Within 2, created by Zoetrope Interactive and published by Iceberg Interactive, is a first person horror game based on the excellent work of H.P. Lovecraft and is the sequel to the previous game Darkness Within: In Pursuit of Loathe Nolder. The game picks up after the events in the first game and begins with Howard being taken into a surgical room by some doctors where he is injected with an unknown substance where he loses consciousness. He wakes up in a cottage in an unknown place and is left with a note that tells him to go to the old town of Arkhamend to find a book known as Recollections of the Past and keep it safe from the people that are after him. Arkhamend is full of eccentric people and many of them are wary of strangers and dont like speaking with others. The townsfolk also hold on to ancient traditions that date back hundreds of years and there are many ancient areas of town. The town is rather deserted however and its glory days are long past so youll find many empty buildings and dark areas. The game sees a large upgrade in many areas from the previous game and the first and most noticeable is movement. Movement ditches the grid bases point and click mechanics and replaces it with wasd key movement allowing you to freely explore your surroundings and gives the game a more open feel in comparison to the first game. Other changes include the use of two different light sources including a lantern and a flashlight and they both have their own way of lighting an area. The lantern doesnt run out of fuel but the flashlights can run out of power after a while. You can often find flashlights in drawers in various locations so youll generally always have a supply of them handy. The game also sees an improvement in graphics which is really quite impressive but still lacks any native widescreen support, which I found weird considering it came out in 2010. There have also been improvements in conversations with people and you will often need to speak with the townsfolk to get new clues and information about what youre trying to do. There will also be times where you will need to make a choice during a conversation and your choice will have an impact on how people react to you within the town. Much of the games original premise remains intact and you will need to use clever thinking to solve the games many puzzles and find the many clues throughout. The game still uses the thinking menu from the first game and you will be using it quite often to solve the mysteries ahead of you. You will also need to use the think menu to combine objects and clues so you can open up new pathways or solve puzzles. There are a variety of different objects that youll get during your time playing and many of them can be equipped for use. These items include a compass, map, and a spray bottle to name a couple. The game also retains the underlining of important information in documents and books that you find to get clues. Doing this will show more about the game and will show useful information that youll need to solve the mystery of the game. You will often have to resort to trial and error when underlining keywords as not all of them are inherently obvious and will need careful reading of the document to pick out an important sentence or word. If you play on standard difficulty you can also choose to have the game find the keywords for you if youre stuck and want to proceed. Not all keywords will be located using this and there are often hidden keywords in the document. There will often be puzzles that you will need to solve in order to get new items or proceed through the area and many of them will need clever thinking to figure out. Many answers to these puzzles can be found in documents found in the immediate area as well so read carefully and look for clues when possible. Overall, Darkness Within 2 is a most welcome improvement over the first game and it feels much more open, surreal and it really captures the weirdness and insanity of H.P. Lovecrafts work. Its an excellent tale that takes you into the dark recesses of the occult and will keep you entertained throughout. Though the game is probably not going to be for everybody but if youre looking for an entertaining story based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft then Id happily recommend the game, if youre looking for a more blood soaked action horror game though itd be best to look elsewhere. Thanks for reading my review of the game folks and I hope this has shown some insight on the game and its features. Shaun Meyers (Kyo Akiara) out!